(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an enzyme coated with an ionic liquid and more particularly, to the preparation and use of an enzyme coated with an ionic liquid, which shows better enantioselectivity than its uncoated counterpart and can be repeatedly reused with no significant loss in catalytic activities.
(b) Description of the Related Art
Enzymatic kinetic resolution of racemic substrates using hydrolytic enzymes provides a useful methodology for the preparation of optically active compounds. Among the hydrolytic enzymes, lipases (lipid-hydrolyzing enzymes) are of great use since they show broad substrate specificity. Lipases are particularly useful in the resolution of racemic alcohols and their esters in organic solvents. However, they often exhibit unsatisfactory enantioselectivity, resulting in a poor resolution. Accordingly, it is highly important to develop new methods for enhancing the lipase enantioselectivity.
Various techniques have been so far developed for solving the enantioselectivity problem, A representative approach is the coating of enzyme with a lipid (Okahata, Y.; Hatano, A.; Ijiro, K. Tetrahedron: Asymmetry 1995, 6, 1311) or a surfactant (Huang, S. Y.; Chang, H. L; Goto, M. Enzyme Microb. Technol., 1998, 22, 552). However, these methods are rather complicated to follow and cause loss in enzyme activities.